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		<header>
			<h1>A trip to Sweet Home</h1>
			<p>Day 00573: Friday, 2016 September 30</p>
		</header>
<p>
	Current countdowns:
</p>
<ul>
	<li>15 unfinished weblog entries in <a href="/en/weblog/2016/07-July/">July</a></li>
	<li>17 days until my old domain registrar can no longer counter my charge dispute</li>
</ul>
<p>
	Today&apos;s <span title="Online Education Strategies">UNIV 1001</span> discussion question asked about how the priorities of work, education, and family life are viewed in each of our respective countries, if our own priorities matched those of our countries, what kind of support we&apos;ve been getting in our education, and how we&apos;d work around a lack of support if there was such a lack.
	I got a little hotheaded writing about those things, so I really let them have it!
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Work seems to be emphasized mostly as a way to pay the bills.
	People seems to judge others based on how well their jobs pay, not how fitting the job is to the person that has it.
	Schooling and study seem to be emphasized as a means to an end.
	People say that you should study just so that you can get a "good" job.
	People in my country seem to put the most emphasis on family life, claiming that family is what life&apos;s all about.
	If you don&apos;t want a family, they think that something&apos;s wrong with you.
</p>
<p>
	It&apos;s also worth noting that some people don&apos;t view family the same way as others.
	For example, my mother tries to define family as being everyone doing what my mother wants.
	I have three siblings.
	I&apos;m vegan, so I don&apos;t eat meat.
	Another of us is vegetarian, so again, doesn&apos;t eat meat.
	A third of us doesn&apos;t like meat, but will eat it under pressure.
	Our father&apos;s not exactly in the picture.
	That means that of the five of us, the majority want nothing to do with meat eating, yet my mother, who&apos;s in the minority, claims that we&apos;re breaking up the family by not just submitting and eating flesh.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	*We&apos;re* the ones breaking up the family.
	That&apos;s only one example, too.
	For some, family is about love, but for others, family is about control.
</p>
<p>
	Personally, my opinions don&apos;t align with that at all.
	For starters, as an asexual, I want nothing to do with breeding.
	Children are not for me, and the thought of creating them then having to deal with them disgusts me.
	As an environmentalist, I think that there are already way too many people already, giving me yet another reason not to create more.
	Family life is not a priority for me, and in fact, it&apos;s a priority to me that I not start a family.
	On the other hand, I see the world as a vile place where the masses allow themselves to be controlled by greedy corporations due to a lack of understanding that the corporations are only empowered by the masses.
	We have enough food to feed the world already, yet much of the world is starving.
	We&apos;re killing off our planet with greenhouse gases.
	I feel that educating people better could result in them taking back the power that is rightfully theirs.
	We could fix this broken world if only people would see the damage that they as individuals are doing.
	It&apos;s not enough just to take back the power though.
	Continued education of future generations is vital to stop this from happening again.
	Education is probably my top priority of the three, though that&apos;s not restricted to just school-related education.
	Some people are able to build meaningful careers that improve the world, but mostly, I&apos;m also of the opinion that a job is a means to an end.
</p>
<p>
	Last time that I was in school, I didn&apos;t seem to receive support and understanding from my mother, and due to my (unrelated) depression at the time, I collapsed under the weight of everything.
	I didn&apos;t exactly need support, but my mother would get ticked off if I didn&apos;t hang out with them often, but I had no time to hang out, go to work, and complete my schoolwork.
	I needed just enough understanding from my mother for them to realize that I didn&apos;t have time to hang out.
	Friends and coworkers were understanding, though my boss at the time kept scheduling me for work during times that I&apos;d said that I was unavailable, as I had school seminars.
	I had them twice a week, but somehow, my boss kept dropping one of the times and only giving me one of those times off.
</p>
<p>
	This time is different for a number of reasons.
	First, my depression is gone, leaving me better able to adjust and adapt.
	When I went vegan, I discovered that I had had a milk allergy all along and that it had been the cause of my depression.
	As long as I avoid milk, I feel great! Likewise, my mother seems to be a lot more understanding, and hasn&apos;t tried to pressure me into hanging out.
	My mother has a job now too, keeping them too busy to hang out as well.
	Lastly, University of the People doesn&apos;t have scheduled seminars.
	There&apos;s no synchronous communication, it&apos;s all asynchronous.
	Once I find a job, it won&apos;t matter if my boss schedules me for any particular hours.
	I&apos;m available any time, provided that I still have enough hours left to study!
</p>
<p>
	I don&apos;t require as much support and understanding as a lot of people do.
	I was raised knowing that understanding is never there when I thought that I needed it.
	My mother is still mildly offended that I&apos;m asexual, which unlike my veganism, isn&apos;t even something that I can control.
	I accept and embrace the fact that in many ways, I am and will always be alone.
	I do need some support though, in the form of people refraining from needlessly taxing on my time.
	Without my former depression, I&apos;ve become much more assertive, and if I don&apos;t receive the very limited support that I need, I will be vocal about it.
	There&apos;s no working around a lack of time, but I&apos;ll make sure that people understand that I can&apos;t be at their beck and call and that I need to have time to work on my schoolwork and I need to have time to detox after schoolwork and paid work.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	The questions answered above were personal, as opposed to being related to this week&apos;s reading materials, so I just answered the questions and will get back to the readings later.
	The <span title="Globalization">POLS 1503</span> discussion questions were about the assigned readings though, so I was going to complete the readings before providing my answer.
	This week&apos;s reading material is only twenty-six pages this time, but like last time, it&apos;s behind a login wall, so you won&apos;t be able to take a look yourself.
	Like past weeks, there was also an optional <a href="https://fod.infobase.com/p_ViewPlaylist.aspx?AssignmentID=AENTAS">video</a>.
	I ended up not working on that assignment though due to taking a trip out of town.
</p>
<p>
	My mother confirmed that Sweet Home is a smaller town than Coos Bay as measured by population size, though it&apos;s less isolated.
	Why didn&apos;t I think of measuring by population size? I was trying to compare the two based on what features were present and absent in each.
	That said, while population size gives me a directly-comparable pair of numbers, it doesn&apos;t tell me what life there will be like as much as feature comparison.
	With it being a slow school week, I went to Sweet Home with my mother.
	Last time that we moved, apparently my mother was offended by the fact that I wasn&apos;t interested in coming to see the town before we moved.
	They took this as a sign that I was reluctant to move or something, but that wasn&apos;t the case at all.
	Simply put, I won&apos;t be able to get a feel for the town by simply taking a car trip there.
	To get a feel for the town, I need to be free to roam on foot (or bike) and explore.
	It does me zero good to see the town before arriving.
</p>
<p>
	My mother&apos;s upset that like the teachers in Coos Bay, the teachers at their new school in Sweet Home didn&apos;t all immediately volunteer their personal telephone numbers.
	Again, my mother hasn&apos;t volunteered their telephone number, so why should the other teachers? Also though, all of the school staff are assigned their own school email accounts.
	Email is, in fact, the primary communication method employed by the school.
	Why is that not good enough? More to the point though, if it&apos;s not good enough, why doesn&apos;t my mother provide their own telephone number to the other teachers and/or ask the other teachers for their telephone numbers?
</p>
<p>
	My mother says that they think that we&apos;ll still be here in Springfield in a month.
	I can&apos;t job hunt until we move because of the short period of time that we&apos;ll be here, but I can get my dental work done perhaps.
	I&apos;ll have to look into that as time allows.
</p>
<p>
	It seems that the T-Mobile network coverage isn&apos;t great.
	It&apos;s tolerable, but not great.
	The signal <strong>*strength*</strong> is fine, as was reported by Vanessa, but I never once saw anything but the slow <abbr title="Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution">EDGE</abbr> network.
</p>
<p>
	As I was heading off to bed, Cyrus and Vanessa arrived, and we stayed up talking until almost midnight.
	They seem to be doing well.
</p>
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